to have diversity with women or black or red or yellow or brown or white if you have no relationships. and if i don't know the chairman of the republican national committee, i have no confidence that he has any relationship with chuck roast black guy, with billfold working white guy, with joe six pack hispanic. if i don't know him and i don't is say that to be self-serving. i just say that to point out how perplexing this when we think we can get people to vote for us if we don't know them. >> let's look at your bio. you were a member of congress from oklahoma for eight years. legislated chairman of the house republican conference, the fourth ranking leadership position and now, the chairman of a communications and public affairs company. you've had a long history in the republican party and as a manager and our peter hamby, he reported this about what the news of you rubbing for rnc chair was greeted with. he said he was met with a mix of quote skepticism, dispolice chief and even a hint of ridicule. do you believe it is racially driven? >> i don't. i think this. i think every single

is a brown girl whose parents are from africa but they are from egypt and so people tell her well, you know, you're not really black. you're african but not really african-american. both these girls are grappling with what it means to be brown skinned and who is really black in america today. >> this is a personal topic for you. it's part of your interest in all this. at what point did you realize, not to be indiscreet here, that your color changed the way people perceived you? >> early on. i grew up in an all white neighborhood in long island, so people made it very clear that our family didn't quite fit in. i have a similar background to nya's. my mom is black, my dad is white but my parents were very direct about our identity. for my five brothers and sisters and me.

everybody around me is white. meanwhile, her best friend is a brown girl whose parents are from africa but they are from egypt and so people tell her well, you know, you're not really black, you're african but not really african-american. both these girls are grappling with what it means to be brown skinned and who is really black in america today. >> this is a personal topic for you. it's part of your interest in all this. at what point did you realize, not to be indiscreet here, that your color changed the way people perceived you? >> early on. i grew up in an all white neighborhood in long island, so people made it very clear that our family didn't quite fit in. i have a similar background to nya's. my mom is black, my dad is white but my parents were very direct about our identity. we're black. my mother is cuban so we're latino. for us it's a very different situation than for a lot of young people today. growing number of young people are mixed race and they're trying to work out their identity and it's really tough for some of them. >> i know from the census department that the g

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